The idea of a £2 billion deal for a national ChatGPT subscription did not emerge from a single meeting, but was the product of months of sustained, high-level engagement between the UK government and OpenAI. Official records show Technology Secretary Peter Kyle met with CEO Sam Altman in both March and April of this year.
This series of meetings indicates a deepening relationship and an ongoing strategic dialogue. The discussions evolved from general talks about collaboration to floating specific, large-scale proposals like the nationwide rollout of ChatGPT Plus. This shows a growing level of comfort and ambition on both sides.
The culmination of these talks was not the £2 billion deal itself, which was deemed too costly, but the non-binding Memorandum of Understanding signed in July. This formal agreement, focused on public service applications, can be seen as the more practical outcome of the ambitious brainstorming that took place in the spring.
The timeline reveals a clear progression in the UK-OpenAI partnership. It started with relationship-building, moved to exploring grand visions, and has now settled into a more focused, project-based collaboration, demonstrating a maturing approach to public-private partnership in the AI sector.
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